I like how you painted you PORSCHE letters to match your car! Looking Good!

That is great that you made it and had TC for an instructor!

We need to figure out your carb issue...

I don't remember it popping when I drove it last month.

Could it be a plug or otherwise ignition problem???

Some famous person said 90% of carb problems are ignition related.

John

Looks like my morning commute.

All kidding aside,
Dude I can only give you huge kudos for everything you are doing. Your restoration and your path to better driving..... Very well done!

Cool that TC is helping out.

Definately a problem, we couldn't go over 4,000 RPM & were short-shifting all day.

I'm thinking bad plug/dead cylinder/ignition. I was busy with Race Control when I wasn't Instructing George, so I wasn't able to look into the problem. Carlos, the Head Tech. my friend the Porsche Master Mechanic said it was like that when George had the car aligned this past week.

But we didn't blow it up & George made it back home

On the Driving Side, George is Good! Was Flying through the Corners, just had no Juice on the Straights. Hopefully his Video shows him passing the Cayman R while we were doing our Fred Flintstone imitiation!

Friends like that is why racing is such great fun.

TC is a good man to be an instructor...he might know a thing or two that will help.

rich

http://www.awolphoto.smugmug.com/keyword/0...7&k=LqMc9rj

Thanks for the kind words guys. All in all, even with the poor running, it was a blast and a long road to get the car to this point. Either way, it needed a shakedown and I'm glad I got a chance to put it on the track. Eventually John will need to drive it as well, since it's definitely got a lot less ponies than his car and probably handles a little differently.

I should also say, I am honored to have T.C. instruct me. The first session I had been driving the car the same way I drove the Mustang at Chumpcar last year, which was really my only other track experience. Within 1 session, T.C. had me driving a completely different line and style, much more suited for momentum cars. I felt confident the whole time, and he has a unique ability to combine both visual and audio aids in just the right amount to coax the driver into a new way of approaching the course. In the afternoon, he basically didn't say anything, which actually built my confidence more and allowed me to explore the track and the car's capability. If you ever intend to track your car at Sebring, he is definitely the guy to have beside you and it would probably be worthwhile to fly him in to show you other tracks as well. Though it was pretty boring on the straights, we had a lot of fun. In the second video you'll see where we got waved by from another car and it took us the whole back straight to get by him


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XiU92tIQOY

an extra 1500rpm would have come in handy.

George, I have to tell ya...amazing!!! The car looks fantastic and the work you have taken on is inspiring....good on ya for sure...I actually think the blue is really cool! When I think of how much work you have done in sucha short time...I bought my car while I was in the middle of my Masters Degree as well....my Wife has a similar comments to your girl friend early on but now she just wants me to finish the car so she can drive it....lol. Thanks so much for documenting your build and showing us all of the work and results. We all learn a lot from these builds. Your idea with the seat slider was great and in fact I am just about to do the same after replacing the fron half of my floor and installing the Engman kit.

Kevin, you're telling me. It's easy to go back now and pick the corners that I definitely would have left it in third or 4th instead of short shifting.

Grant, thanks for the kind words. It's cool to know someone has a similar story! Hope you get yours back on the road soon

More video, this time of the second session. I got up a little more confidence in this one and started exploring more of what the car could do, especially though T1, T13 and T17.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBh7ZDJuJyI

You are not running on all four cylinders properly.

It sounds like one cylinder is either not using a good plug, a bad wire, or the carbs are not setup right.

Well I'm both impressed and jealous! Some day I'll drive Sebring ... I can only hope! It looks like it was a ton of fun, even if the car wasn't performing to its potential. I'd say it looks like you've really learned T13 and T17 very well. That's just from the camera perspective of course, but still those (and T1 as you said) seem to be your favorites and of course they are crucial momentum conservation turns, hence their challenge. So I've been told. In a word, Awesome!

Great videos George and nice job on the driving.

When we get the engine running right your car is going to give the chump world hell.

John

Well that just about solves it! Spent the past two weeks pulling the old engine and putting the spare in. Finally got it buttoned up tonight and started with no drama. Cranked it for a few times to build oil pressure, then hooked up power to the fuel pump and away she went. First impression is that it runs MUCH smoother than the old one. No coughs from the carbs, no hesitation and NO backfiring! Took it around the block a few times just to put my mind at ease.

Tomorrow I'll do a basic tune - get it timed, synch the carbs, adjust the mixture and re-tighten the exhaust nuts.

Big thanks to John for being patient and Billh1963 for being honest with me and providing me a good spare!

A bonus - I swapped transmissions to the one that was attached to this motor. Bill, I think this must have been rebuilt too at some point.WOW, what a difference good synchros make. Not sure what is going on internally, but the "throws" feel much tighter as well. If the good Dr. Evilicious sees this, maybe he can shed some light on what would cause this difference.

You must have a good instructor George! We can tell by his legs who he is!

I'm glad to see the "Pink Panther Returns" is more than just a movie title

The PO of the Pink Panther was adamant that both the engine and transmission only had around 5k miles on the rebuild. I guess that's true. I'm so happy that the engine is working out for you!

Thanks fellas. It'll be cool to tear into those heads on the old engine to see if my suspicions are confirmed. I think there is a head gasket leak on #3, a cracked head, or other, but that'll be for another day. Too much stuff left to do for the moment.

sounds like you can ratchet up your shift point to 5.5k. have fun with your 'new' car george.

Thanks Kev. Still not sure I have the stones to do that... so worried about breaking something. But it'll be nice to at least get it past 4,000.

, Bill D.

George does that engine have that bolt I sent you in it? If so the it can easily go to the redline. It is a very special bolt! Rev away! While I am sure that going too far with every shift is not good but if it is a sound seasoned engine there should not be too much risk with taking it there once in a while.

Hey I sprung for one of Tim's gauge light sets. Have you installed yours yet? I hope to have them next week and ready for Okteenerfest.

It sure does Mike! Now that I know I have the special crank bolt, I'm a little more confident to rev it. Sort of like the "special tires" Harry put on Cole Trickle's car in Days of Thunder.

Have not had a chance to send my gauges to Tim yet. I'm dropping the car off on the east coast this weekend with FourBlades so we can finish our prep on the car. Still have a lot of must-do items to meet tech requirements so unfortunately the gauges fell by the wayside. It would be nice to have them for the race though as shift lights!

Door bars in and cage complete, finally!

Looking good.

Thanks Shane. As I mentioned to you, not quite Tangering Racing quality, and if I had it to do over again, I probably would have just purchased Chris's product. But it will be nice to remove the cage to R&R things if need be.

Looks like it turned out pretty nice. Are you planning on paint or powder coating to prevent too much rust?

I may be missing the point but should the bolt heads be facing you instead of the bolts? I would think you would want any pointy parts away from you

I'll probably just use tractor paint, or some kind of durable epoxy paint. Getting it over to a powdercoating shop would be a pain in the ass.

Bill, that's a good call. But this is only how the guys at the hot rod shop put it together after they did the tube bending. I have to disassemble it all and do some other work, then put it back together. Then, I'll make sure all of the pointy things are out of the way

Well if you get into it this weekend let me know

Hey George,
What your plans for bolting the roof down? Our factory latches won't pass tech for Chump.

Custom "solid" latches - no drilling necessary!

Latest project. Came out pretty good and took very little effort/time... which is rare for most of my projects.

Did you use plexiglass? How did you cut it?

I believe it's 1/4 inch acrylic. It's what I had sitting here at the time (not even sure where I got it.) I cut it with a Dremel and a little saw blade attachment I got at Harbor Freight. Ideally, I think the best way to cut it is with a band saw. I have some leftover if you want to experiment Chad.

Sounds good, I am tired of worrying about water leaking in there

Chad stopped by on Saturday morning to help me drop the transmission and replace the throwout bearing and wheel bearing. The man is a beast! He had it out in 30 minutes and still had a good attitude despite having a radiator hose blow off of his V8 car on the way over

Chad had to run, but I was able to tackle the wheel bearing. Of course Eric Shea's beautiful press method is probably preferred, but I tackled it on the car since I've done it multiple times on Miatas and other vehicles. This allowed me to avoid re-aligning the car (at least for the time being) as well.

First, I removed the rear hub nut, wheel and caliper and used an impact screwdriver to remove the two screws retaining the rear disc to the hub. Then I borrowed a slide hammer (part #27033) and hub puller attachment (part #27032) from Autozone. This can all be seen below.

...Gave it a couple pops and it came right off, and even left the inner race inside the bearing, which is nice (often times you'll end up having to drive/split the race off of the hub).

The bearing had a decent amount of play in it, which explains the squealing. These are SKFs, and I believe them to be original to the car. Not bad to get 40 years out of one of these puppies. Notice that the outer seal is completely dried up and shrank from the outer race.

Click to view attachment

Next I removed the bearing retainer plate. While it is possible to drive the bearing out of the arm from the backside, there is limited space to work, so I put my threaded rod to use with a large socket behind the inner bearing race. I used the the weight portion of the slide hammer on the threaded rod to pull the bearing out.

Click to view attachment

Here is the whole assembly out of the car.

Click to view attachment

Then, after freezing the new bearing for a few hours and heating up the trailing arm recess, I lightly began to tap it in. Once it was in fairly straight, I used the old bearing to drive it the rest of the way how. ONLY tap the outer race - do not touch the inner race or risk having to do this all over again in a short amount of time.
Click to view attachment

Then I used the threaded rod to pull the hub into the bearing. A little bit of leftover Redline rear end grease made this a piece of cake.

Click to view attachment


The rest is pretty boring Reassemble in reverse order and torque the rear hub nut to 180-250 ft lbs.

Now I get to move onto the fun stuff including window net, painting the cage, putting in the rear polycarbonate glass from 914Rubber, figuring out whats still going on with my fog lights and installing the fire system.

Window net in! A bit of a pain finding something that would attach the bottom to the door bars effectively and remain tight, but also be flexible enough to fall completely out of the way to allow ingress/egress. I ended up using a solid 5/16 steel bar with 3/32 vinyl coated cable.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment



A huge thanks to Perry Kiehl as well. Since the window had to be removed to fit the door bars, I had no way to keep water from getting inside. Perry rushed me out one of his GREAT umbrella covers, which makes rolling up the windows (or even having any) unnecessary now!

Click to view attachment

Does it also cover the engine bay?

It sure does Shane. For anyone with carbs, this is a no brainer, but I think it's pretty much a prerequisite for any 914 anyways. Perry is a great guy and was super helpful.

A couple more things I've been meaning to do for awhile.

First, I emulated Brant's simple, but awesome hood fuel filler door idea. Simple measuring and cutting and a little bit of thin aluminum produced almost exactly what I wanted.

I finished it off by adding a little bit of split rubber cord from McMaster. I need to go back and paint the metal where the cutting wheel took the paint off once it stops raining around here.

I also needed a simple and lightweight solution for a defroster. I ended up with a $20 bilge blower from Ebay, some ducting from Home Cheapo and a little bit of time fabbing up an aluminum vent to replace the factory bakelite piece that would have been there. I didn't see the need to connect it to the cowl as all you really need is air at the same temperature as ambient. I would say the whole thing weighs less than 2-3 pounds.

Last night's rain gave me a chance to try it out with the window fully fogged over. In less than a minute it was clear again - those bilge blowers put out a TON of air.

Finally over the weekend I was able to finish my homemade caliper ducts. I'll concede that this idea was wholeheartedly stolen from Racer Chris' awesome idea for providing vented air to solid rotors. These actually sit directly on top of the caliper, blowing air into them rather than on the rotor.

Unfortunately they're made of thin steel, so they weigh about 1/3 lb each. One day I'll go back and do them in aluminum.

Again, thank you to Racer Chris as I definitely wouldn't have come up with the idea on my own.